Image by Matthew Bradley via Flickr
Updated: April 15, 2018 (added full film)
teleSUR English on Feb 8, 2017
In this film review of the documentary “All Governments Lie”, we hear from Director, Fred Peabody, and Producer, Peter Raymont, about how the mainstream corporate media are not holding governments accountable in the way that they should, and looks at the independent, investigative journalists who are.
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Updated: April 15, 2018; replaced video Mar. 29 2019
All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I. F. Stone
Densho 45 on Oct 13, 2020
From the archives:
The Enemy is Not Trump, It is Ourselves by John Pilger
Robert Parry: Evidence for Russian Involvement in East Ukraine Based on Shoddy Journalism
Abby Martin: We’ve Been Lied To, Over and Over Again
Chris Hedges: Journalism is Being Pushed To the Fringes of Society
Dandelion Salad 
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I F Stone is an extraordinary example; a man who learned classical Greek in his eighties (if I’m not mistaken) so that he could write a book about Socrates. Truly exceptional.
I’m increasingly amazed by the impressive spectrum of grass-roots diversity and intellectual expression that is actually growing & thriving in America; but when I really think it through, it seems to me there is a strong argument to suggest that the remarkable scale and scope of ethically motivated journalism today, is something that really distinguishes the USA from the rest of the world. So I don’t think we should underestimate it.
Of course much of it may be attributable to the way the Internet has rapidly facilitated this development, especially in the last decade. Clearly, independent journalism has existed everywhere from the early days of Fust & Gutenberg, under regional constraints, conditions & enjoying varying degrees of freedom ~ or severe restriction, as the case may be depending on the circumstances….but the USA is certainly unique today. Perhaps this is largely due to the fact of a common language, combined with the most sophisticated media technologies. However, what is still particularly relevant for the US are its First Amendment Rights.
The UK is quite old-fashioned in this respect, because there is no formal written constitution, so everything is conducted according to principles of established parliamentary procedure, legal or ‘constitutional’ precedent & due process. It gets extremely complex, involving finely calibrated argument, open debate, formal Parliamentary Inquiries, Government Committees, Supreme Court deliberations and so forth, that involve a lot more than just wrangling over small print or technicalities of constitutional interpretation, as in the litigious US. The point is these systems have emerged from distinct origins, particularly evident now in Europe with a burgeoning sense of the crisis of (national) identities.
Governments lie because they ‘have to;’ otherwise (it is conceded) the establishment privileges & exceptional powers ‘they’ protect & represent would cease to exist. It follows therefore that such elite, often hereditary structural lineages, must be, technically speaking, either criminal or ~ if not demonstrably unlawful ~ then properly ‘entitled’ by a purported historic “divine right.” That is to say, beyond constitutionally determined ‘mores’ because endowed with an alleged or assumed transcendental responsibility to exercise supreme power ~ in the Platonic sense, obliged to sustain the Noble Lie, or whatever prevalent myth of Res Publica fits the bill.
So once the classical provenance is all said and done, it really all reduces quite swiftly to what you (think you) know; who pulls your privileged purse strings; how you came by your knowledge; in what form, by which means and from what source. Northrop Frye extolled what he wisely called the ‘educated imagination.’ Not a bad thing, and a theme proactively developed by his pupil Harold Bloom, that stalwart defender of the Western Canon.
Literature matters. Psychology has something of value to contribute to this, but so does philosophy. Perhaps the next generation will benefit in hindsight from the findings of neuroscience, and even microbiology; but no matter how clever we get, certainty may not be something that we can rely upon to inherit; only, earn ~ if and when we realize the example of our own unique integrity.
Great commentary, David, thank you.
Now have to add organizations like Amnesty International with some very questionable evidence about Assad just recently.
Have to agree with that, Barbara. And it’s not the first time with AI either.
See: https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/how-humanitarian-organizations-provide-a-human-face-to-war-by-felicity-arbuthnot/ Also about Syria.